As I said I would I'm making a thread to explain the basic mechanisms of natural selection since some on the creationist side seem to be unfamiliar with it. I would think evolution was absurd too if I only knew what it supposedly can do and not how it can actually do it. I would ask that you please read the entire thing and try to be open-minded and not just mentally argue with it the whole time. Take in the information and think about it.

Like with my other comments I will give some background and history so you know where the idea came from and that it was not, as creationist websites insist, an ideological attack on religion or an attempt to claim there is no god etc - just as the big bang theory which is similarly vilified as anti-god was first proposed by this guy:

Darwin started out as a creationist believe it or not. He believed the world was in the order of a few thousand years old and was created as-is. He later abandoned his belief in a young earth (but not a creator), not because of biology or any ideology, but because of a book he read about geology and the evidence of the very old age of things like mountains and other geological formations. He abandoned the strict, literal interpretation of the bible he had in his youth but believed in a creator all his life. The last words of On The Origin Of Species are:

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

He ended up traveling the world by ship and studying nature, and collected countless specimens and made many sketches and filled several notebooks with observations on his travels. One thing he found on the galopagos islands he could not explain until many years later.

At this point he believed the earth was old but that life had been created in it's present form. But on the galopagos islands he saw something which seemingly made that impossible. The galopagos islands were spit up by a volcano and as a result there is one big island and lots of smaller islands around it. Darwin observed that on the main island in the center there were many animals and on the outer islands there were similar, but distinct animals that could be consistently and uniquely identified to the island they came from - this seemed to be the case with pretty much every species. At the time darwin figured god could've made the animals different on each island for some reason and thought little of it. He captured many specimens to bring back with him. When he returned to the city he asked a bird expert to identify the birds from the different islands and was astonished to be told they were all finches, they were all the same species.

The reason this was confusing is that darwin knew about animal husbandry and knew that animals inherit a blend of their parents' traits (just like people do), so these finches, unlike the land animals, were not isolated from each other and could fly to the neighboring islands and breed with the other finches, so over even a few hundred or a few thousand years they should not have uniform characteristics on each island, they should all have a blend of different characteristics.

Darwin could not understand why they did not. Years later he formulated an explanation.

He noticed that the finches had distinct traits (for instance some had big, thick beaks like a parrot and others had thin, narrow beaks like a woodpecker) that seemed linked to their diets, because he observed that the wood-pecker like finches ate insects and a wood-pecker like beak would be useful for picking them out of the ground and rotted wood etc, while the ones with thick, parrot-like beaks ate nuts and seeds for which the beaks were useful to crack open, and some ate fruits for which a larger beak would be more useful than a narrow beak.

This gave darwin an idea. He knew that species varied (though he didn't know about mutations or DNA, that would be discovered later) and that those variations are inherited (think family traits). So he proposed that different variations are inherited at different rates depending on how they effect the survivability of the individual organism. In other words over a hundred or a thousand generations the genes that result in a stronger immune system will be passed on more often than the genes that result in a weaker immune system by merit of the fact that they make their posessors survive at a lower or higher rate. He described this concept as natural selection or survival of the fittest. That nature "selects" the genes for a certain beak because those that possess it starve less often and pass on the genes more frequently over time. This is where we get the concept of gene pools from. It's also very similar mathematically to how free market capitalism works, unsuccessful business practices tend to disappear and successful ones become common by the very mechanism that they increase or decrease profit.

Species evolve, not individuals. I am not subject to natural selection, but the human race is. Which is why different populations have different resistances to disease, tolerances to things like sugar and alcohol, are at different risks to things like heart disease, diabetes or even cancer and those resistances are hereditary. People whose ancestors drank alcohol for a thousand years have a greater inherited tolerance toward it than people whose ancestors did not, such as native americans which to this day are highly susceptible to alcoholism and alcohol related diseases.

You might say "but how does nature know what changes to make?" The answer is it doesn't have to. Natural selection happens spontaneously, the useful genes are selected for and the harmful ones are selected against by their intrinsic effects on the individual's chance of survival and reproduction, no conscious mind is required to understand how or why a gene is harmful. Another way to look at it is this - humans breed animals to be faster (like race horses or greyhounds) or more aggressive like pitbulls and attack dogs or to have stronger senses like bloodhounds. But we have done this for centuries before we even knew what DNA was. If we can breed horses to be faster without having to know why or how they're faster, why would nature have to know why or how a gene is useful? All that is required is for x genes to be passed on at a lower rate and y genes to be passed on at a higher rate. This can happen because the zebras with the "fast" genes tend to get picked off by the lions the least or it can happen because the winner at the race track gets bred into new generations of racing dogs more often than the losers.

The mechanism is the same. We can design a faster dog without understanding why or how it's faster, and so can nature.

If you have questions (hopefully in the form of open-minded inquiry, not attacks) please ask them. I will move on though for now.

Darwin talked about the evolution of complex organs like the eye. He said (as it is dishonestly quote-mined by answers in genesis):

"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."

This is a common quote on creationist websites that is presented as "see, darwin said evolution is absurd!"

But he continues:

"Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated; but I may remark that several facts make me suspect that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which produce sound."

In other words the same mechanism that can produce small changes can, theoretically produce large changes, like the development of entire new organs with complex inter-working parts, but only if the things he listed are true - 1 ) things like eyes vary slightly from person to person, 2 ) the variations are inherited, 3 ) a series of functional intermediate stages can be proposed, and 4 ) those stages are all useful in some environment in nature.

This is four evolutionary predictions - again using the scientific method and saying "if x, y and z are not true my theory is false".

So lets test them. That eyes vary and that variations are inherited everybody knows is true these days I think. It's pretty common knowledge that eye scanners are like fingerprint scanners and that everyone's eyes are unique and that we inherit things like eye color from our parents, so I don't think I have to demonstrate that (though gilbo12345 will doubtless demand that I do just to be contrary). Now here's the clincher - a series of functional intermediate stages all of which are useful and fully functional - here's where the rubber meets the road.

Oh lookie, what do we have here? : )

Not only are all of the stages fully functional, all of them exist in nature.

Now at this point you might pick nits or disagree or argue, but you cannot pretend evolution is not scientific and does not make specific predictions (there are many others I have talked about but are almost all ignored) which, if they were wrong would falsify the theory.

There is lots more to talk about, countless studies and experiments and explanations for all different kinds of organs and traits, the fossil record, you name it. If you want to learn about evolution science (and not the flimsy caricature creationists attack) this is just chapter 1 of the book.

1. When he returned to the city he asked a bird expert to identify the birds from the different islands and was astonished to be told they were all finches, they were all the same species.

2. The reason this was confusing is that darwin knew about animal husbandry and knew that animals inherit a blend of their parents' traits (just like people do), so these finches, unlike the land animals, were not isolated from each other and could fly to the neighboring islands and breed with the other finches, so over even a few hundred or a few thousand years they should not have uniform characteristics on each island, they should all have a blend of different characteristics.

3. Darwin could not understand why they did not. Years later he formulated an explanation.

4. He noticed that the finches had distinct traits (for instance some had big, thick beaks like a parrot and others had thin, narrow beaks like a woodpecker) that seemed linked to their diets, because he observed that the wood-pecker like finches ate insects and a wood-pecker like beak would be useful for picking them out of the ground and rotted wood etc, while the ones with thick, parrot-like beaks ate nuts and seeds for which the beaks were useful to crack open, and some ate fruits for which a larger beak would be more useful than a narrow beak.

5. This gave darwin an idea. He knew that species varied (though he didn't know about mutations or DNA, that would be discovered later) and that those variations are inherited (think family traits). So he proposed that different variations are inherited at different rates depending on how they effect the survivability of the individual organism. In other words over a hundred or a thousand generations the genes that result in a stronger immune system will be passed on more often than the genes that result in a weaker immune system by merit of the fact that they make their posessors survive at a lower or higher rate.

6. He described this concept as natural selection or survival of the fittest. That nature "selects" the genes for a certain beak because those that possess it starve less often and pass on the genes more frequently over time. This is where we get the concept of gene pools from. It's also very similar mathematically to how free market capitalism works, unsuccessful business practices tend to disappear and successful ones become common by the very mechanism that they increase or decrease profit.

7. Species evolve, not individuals. I am not subject to natural selection, but the human race is. Which is why different populations have different resistances to disease, tolerances to things like sugar and alcohol, are at different risks to things like heart disease, diabetes or even cancer.

8. If you have questions (hopefully in the form of open-minded inquiry, not attacks) please ask them. I will move on though for now.

9. In other words the same mechanism that can produce small changes can, theoretically produce large changes, like the development of entire new organs with complex inter-working parts, but only if the things he listed are true - 1 ) things like eyes vary slightly from person to person, 2 ) the variations are inherited, 3 ) a series of functional intermediate stages can be proposed, and 4 ) those stages are all useful in some environment in nature.

10. This is four evolutionary predictions - again using the scientific method and saying "if x, y and z are not true my theory is false".

11. (though gilbo12345 will doubtless demand that I do just to be contrary). Now here's the clincher - a series of functional intermediate stages all of which are useful and fully functional - here's where the rubber meets the road.

12. Oh lookie, what do we have here? : )

13. Not only are all of the stages fully functional, all of them exist in nature.

14. Now at this point you might pick nits or disagree or argue, but you cannot pretend evolution is not scientific and does not make specific predictions (there are many others I have talked about but are almost all ignored) which, if they were wrong would falsify the theory.

1. At least you admit that the finches are all the same species, (which can interbreed)... I've had no end of grief from evolutionists claiming that Dawins finches prove evolution since they are all different species.

2. This could apply to dogs or cats or anything really.... Seems like an invalid argument since these animals are also in the same situation. However lets run with it... Though surely you realise that this is mere observation, (not scientific experimentation).

3. Yes a hypothesis was formed, that is what happens from observations.

4. Yes differences are observed across breeds of a species.

5. Yes adaption is observed within populations, nothing new here.

6. The term "survival of the fittest" is a tautology since the fittest are deemed those able to survive...

7. Shakes head... We had the same false claim a few months ago. A population is made up of individuals, so how can selection occur to a population but not an individual? The reason why the evolutionist wants to forget about the individual is due to a critical point in the adaption of supposedly new traits. When a mutation occurs the rarity that they same mutation/s will occur in the same nucleotide/s in the same chromosome/s in the same group of the same species within the same locality is mathematically impossible, therefore when new information arises, there is only one copy of this change within the entire population. However genetic drift would more often than not remove this change from the gene pool regardless if the change gave a benefit or not, the equations for genetic drift give less than 1% survivability of a trait of which there is only one copy... This is a fundamental assumption evolutionists make, they automatically assume that all traits will automatically fixate within a population with 100% fixation, without regard to the problematic details of such a thing.

8. Not attacks, think of it as free tutoring

9. Keep in mind that you're making this claim with literally zero evidence that small changes can indeed lead to larger ones. Also keep in mind that Darwin makes no mention of the actual mechanism... Darwin doesn't care HOW it works which is contrary to science, he is making a logical leap of faith in that observation is his evidence.... (Please read the scientific method, that is not how science works these days)

10. Again, ad hoc "predictions" are not predictions.

11. Why would I ask evidence of something that has already been demonstrated, again yet another slanderous claim which I ask you to retract. Every time I have asked you for evidence is when you have made a claim based on faith, in which you didn't support, (and haven't bothered to...)

12. No dice... Computer models (which do what you program them to do) is not evidence. I can program a computer to say that I am a millionare and I can superimpose my face on a celebrity driving a sports car.. Does this suddenly mean that I am a millionare and drive a sports car? No. A computer will do what you program it to do, it is not at all determinate in finding what nature has done in the past, since the programs you program it with will be determine on what you want the computer to do, which is entirely arbitrary to nature itself.

13. Yes, but you are missing the mechanism.. That is the crucial thing. Similarly Darwin didn't care too much about the mechanism either

"How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated"

However its the mechanism which is the evidence of evolution, not mere observation of something (and I will explain why in a moment)

14. Firstly it doesn't make predictions because its "predictions" are made ad hoc...

Secondly as I have been aluding to, (and something I have been bursting to tell you, once you stated some form of evidence... which you never did.. otherwise I'd have the opportunity to tell you this)...

Observations are not scientific evidence

The scientific method is as such

Observation > Hypothesis > Experimentation > Result

Notice how the observation comes before building the hypothesis, notice how the hypothesis is supported by experimentation.

Where is the experimentation that verifies the hypothesis that evolution created the eye?

Where is the experimentation that verifies that the variation within Darwin's finches are a product of evolution?

etc..etc..etc..

Merely pointing to more observations doesn't verify the hypothesis, don't believe me? Research the scientific method, also Karl Popper.

Here is an anology and one that points where mere observation is voodoo-science. We can observe the sun going around the Earth, I can claim this observation as "evidence" that the sun goes around the Earth... However we already know that this is not the case. Therefore my claim based on observation is incorrect.

This is why experimentation is required to verify a hypothesis since we can claim something that seems logical from an observation, however what we deem logical may not be what is true, (this is a big learning curve for evolutionists), since something being logical to someone presupposes two things.1- that the person knows everything there is to know about everything.2- that the person has interpreted such knowledge correctly.

Neither of these two points can ever be satisfied so the "it seems logical" argument put forward by many evolutionists, (who admit that observations are not evidence that verify a hypothesis), fails on this point, in that in most cases claiming something as logical is premature since we just don't have all the facts to make such a claim.

If only the "most advanced" eye existed today then maybe you would have a point.

Notice yet another lie, Uppsala: "Observations are not scientific evidence"

The truth is that one cannot make a scientific hypothesis without observation. One must LOOK in order to verify. Things begin with empirical investigation without which science is not possible. Furthermore, experimentation itself is not possible without observation of the data.

1. At least you admit that the finches are all the same species, (which can interbreed)... I've had no end of grief from evolutionists claiming that Dawins finches prove evolution since they are all different species.

2. This could apply to dogs or cats or anything really.... Seems like an invalid argument since these animals are also in the same situation. However lets run with it... Though surely you realise that this is mere observation, (not scientific experimentation).

3. Yes a hypothesis was formed, that is what happens from observations.

4. Yes differences are observed across breeds of a species.

5. Yes adaption is observed within populations, nothing new here.

6. The term "survival of the fittest" is a tautology since the fittest are deemed those able to survive...

7. Shakes head... We had the same false claim a few months ago. A population is made up of individuals, so how can selection occur to a population but not an individual? The reason why the evolutionist wants to forget about the individual is due to a critical point in the adaption of supposedly new traits. When a mutation occurs the rarity that they same mutation/s will occur in the same nucleotide/s in the same chromosome/s in the same group of the same species within the same locality is mathematically impossible, therefore when new information arises, there is only one copy of this change within the entire population. However genetic drift would more often than not remove this change from the gene pool regardless if the change gave a benefit or not, the equations for genetic drift give less than 1% survivability of a trait of which there is only one copy... This is a fundamental assumption evolutionists make, they automatically assume that all traits will automatically fixate within a population with 100% fixation, without regard to the problematic details of such a thing.

8. Not attacks, think of it as free tutoring

9. Keep in mind that you're making this claim with literally zero evidence that small changes can indeed lead to larger ones. Also keep in mind that Darwin makes no mention of the actual mechanism... Darwin doesn't care HOW it works which is contrary to science, he is making a logical leap of faith in that observation is his evidence.... (Please read the scientific method, that is not how science works these days)

10. Again, ad hoc "predictions" are not predictions.

11. Why would I ask evidence of something that has already been demonstrated, again yet another slanderous claim which I ask you to retract. Every time I have asked you for evidence is when you have made a claim based on faith, in which you didn't support, (and haven't bothered to...)

12. No dice... Computer models (which do what you program them to do) is not evidence. I can program a computer to say that I am a millionare and I can superimpose my face on a celebrity driving a sports car.. Does this suddenly mean that I am a millionare and drive a sports car? No. A computer will do what you program it to do, it is not at all determinate in finding what nature has done in the past, since the programs you program it with will be determine on what you want the computer to do, which is entirely arbitrary to nature itself.

13. Yes, but you are missing the mechanism.. That is the crucial thing. Similarly Darwin didn't care too much about the mechanism either

"How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated"

However its the mechanism which is the evidence of evolution, not mere observation of something (and I will explain why in a moment)

14. Firstly it doesn't make predictions because its "predictions" are made ad hoc...

Secondly as I have been aluding to, (and something I have been bursting to tell you, once you stated some form of evidence... which you never did.. otherwise I'd have the opportunity to tell you this)...

Observations are not scientific evidence

The scientific method is as such

Observation > Hypothesis > Experimentation > Result

Notice how the observation comes before building the hypothesis, notice how the hypothesis is supported by experimentation.

Where is the experimentation that verifies the hypothesis that evolution created the eye?

Where is the experimentation that verifies that the variation within Darwin's finches are a product of evolution?

etc..etc..etc..

Merely pointing to more observations doesn't verify the hypothesis, don't believe me? Research the scientific method, also Karl Popper.

Here is an anology and one that points where mere observation is voodoo-science. We can observe the sun going around the Earth, I can claim this observation as "evidence" that the sun goes around the Earth... However we already know that this is not the case. Therefore my claim based on observation is incorrect.

This is why experimentation is required to verify a hypothesis since we can claim something that seems logical from an observation, however what we deem logical may not be what is true, (this is a big learning curve for evolutionists), since something being logical to someone presupposes two things.1- that the person knows everything there is to know about everything.2- that the person has interpreted such knowledge correctly.

Neither of these two points can ever be satisfied so the "it seems logical" argument put forward by many evolutionists, (who admit that observations are not evidence that verify a hypothesis), fails on this point, in that in most cases claiming something as logical is premature since we just don't have all the facts to make such a claim.

1. At least you admit that the finches are all the same species, (which can interbreed)... I've had no end of grief from evolutionists claiming that Dawins finches prove evolution since they are all different species.

2. This could apply to dogs or cats or anything really.... Seems like an invalid argument since these animals are also in the same situation. However lets run with it... Though surely you realise that this is mere observation, (not scientific experimentation).

3. Yes a hypothesis was formed, that is what happens from observations.

4. Yes differences are observed across breeds of a species.

5. Yes adaption is observed within populations, nothing new here.

6. The term "survival of the fittest" is a tautology since the fittest are deemed those able to survive...

7. Shakes head... We had the same false claim a few months ago. A population is made up of individuals, so how can selection occur to a population but not an individual? The reason why the evolutionist wants to forget about the individual is due to a critical point in the adaption of supposedly new traits. When a mutation occurs the rarity that they same mutation/s will occur in the same nucleotide/s in the same chromosome/s in the same group of the same species within the same locality is mathematically impossible, therefore when new information arises, there is only one copy of this change within the entire population. However genetic drift would more often than not remove this change from the gene pool regardless if the change gave a benefit or not, the equations for genetic drift give less than 1% survivability of a trait of which there is only one copy... This is a fundamental assumption evolutionists make, they automatically assume that all traits will automatically fixate within a population with 100% fixation, without regard to the problematic details of such a thing.

8. Not attacks, think of it as free tutoring

9. Keep in mind that you're making this claim with literally zero evidence that small changes can indeed lead to larger ones. Also keep in mind that Darwin makes no mention of the actual mechanism... Darwin doesn't care HOW it works which is contrary to science, he is making a logical leap of faith in that observation is his evidence.... (Please read the scientific method, that is not how science works these days)

10. Again, ad hoc "predictions" are not predictions.

11. Why would I ask evidence of something that has already been demonstrated, again yet another slanderous claim which I ask you to retract. Every time I have asked you for evidence is when you have made a claim based on faith, in which you didn't support, (and haven't bothered to...)

12. No dice... Computer models (which do what you program them to do) is not evidence. I can program a computer to say that I am a millionare and I can superimpose my face on a celebrity driving a sports car.. Does this suddenly mean that I am a millionare and drive a sports car? No. A computer will do what you program it to do, it is not at all determinate in finding what nature has done in the past, since the programs you program it with will be determine on what you want the computer to do, which is entirely arbitrary to nature itself.

13. Yes, but you are missing the mechanism.. That is the crucial thing. Similarly Darwin didn't care too much about the mechanism either

"How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated"

However its the mechanism which is the evidence of evolution, not mere observation of something (and I will explain why in a moment)

14. Firstly it doesn't make predictions because its "predictions" are made ad hoc...

Secondly as I have been aluding to, (and something I have been bursting to tell you, once you stated some form of evidence... which you never did.. otherwise I'd have the opportunity to tell you this)...

Observations are not scientific evidence

The scientific method is as such

Observation > Hypothesis > Experimentation > Result

Notice how the observation comes before building the hypothesis, notice how the hypothesis is supported by experimentation.

Where is the experimentation that verifies the hypothesis that evolution created the eye?

Where is the experimentation that verifies that the variation within Darwin's finches are a product of evolution?

etc..etc..etc..

Merely pointing to more observations doesn't verify the hypothesis, don't believe me? Research the scientific method, also Karl Popper.

Here is an anology and one that points where mere observation is voodoo-science. We can observe the sun going around the Earth, I can claim this observation as "evidence" that the sun goes around the Earth... However we already know that this is not the case. Therefore my claim based on observation is incorrect.

This is why experimentation is required to verify a hypothesis since we can claim something that seems logical from an observation, however what we deem logical may not be what is true, (this is a big learning curve for evolutionists), since something being logical to someone presupposes two things.1- that the person knows everything there is to know about everything.2- that the person has interpreted such knowledge correctly.

Neither of these two points can ever be satisfied so the "it seems logical" argument put forward by many evolutionists, (who admit that observations are not evidence that verify a hypothesis), fails on this point, in that in most cases claiming something as logical is premature since we just don't have all the facts to make such a claim.

"I would ask that you please read the entire thing and try to be open-minded and not just mentally argue with it the whole time. Take in the information and think about it."

If only the "most advanced" eye existed today then maybe you would have a point.

Because I was describing different stages in the evolution of the eye, not individual mutations. And I think your second point is based on a misunderstanding of the process, I may not have explained it fully. Natural selection adapts species to environments, there is no "most advanced" eye because any configuration of an eye is going to be more useful in one environment than another. For instance some species like lamas have rectangular eyes on the sides of their heads that give them a panoramic view like so:

This is obviously useful for a herd animal that is hunted, it lets them see predators from all around - but to a predator like a lion that needs to see accurately what is in front of them while running this eye would be a hindrance. So one eye is not better or worse than the other, it is merely better adapted to the environment of each species. Similarly a lizard is not "more evolved" or "less evolved" than a polar bear, both are just better adapted to their respective environments - and their adaptations would all have the reverse effect in the environment of the other animal. A lizard would quickly freeze to death in the arctic and a polar bear would quickly die from the heat in the desert. It's fur would make things worse, not better.

This is also why the "why aren't bacteria more evolved" arguments don't make sense, evolution is not a B-line to being human, it is not a guided process. Nature wasn't trying to produce us any more than it was trying to produce rabbits or cockroaches.

Of course a theistic evolutionist might say god guided the process or created humans but animals evolved or that we evolved to a certain point and god gave us a soul or made us self-aware or any number of possible things.

Notice yet another lie, Uppsala: "Observations are not scientific evidence"

The truth is that one cannot make a scientific hypothesis without observation. One must LOOK in order to verify. Things begin with empirical investigation without which science is not possible. Furthermore, experimentation itself is not possible without observation of the data.

Because I was describing different stages in the evolution of the eye, not individual mutations. And I think your second point is based on a misunderstanding of the process, I may not have explained it fully. Natural selection adapts species to environments, there is no "most advanced" eye because any configuration of an eye is going to be more useful in one environment than another. For instance some species like lamas have rectangular eyes on the sides of their heads that give them a panoramic view like so:

This is obviously useful for a herd animal that is hunted, it lets them see predators from all around - but to a predator like a lion that needs to see accurately what is in front of them while running this eye would be a hindrance. So one eye is not better or worse than the other, it is merely better adapted to the environment of each species. Similarly a lizard is not "more evolved" or "less evolved" than a polar bear, both are just better adapted to their respective environments - and their adaptations would all have the reverse effect in the environment of the other animal. A lizard would quickly freeze to death in the arctic and a polar bear would quickly die from the heat in the desert. It's fur would make things worse, not better.

This is also why the "why aren't bacteria more evolved" arguments don't make sense, evolution is not a B-line to being human, it is not a guided process. Nature wasn't trying to produce us any more than it was trying to produce rabbits or cockroaches.

Of course a theistic evolutionist might say god guided the process or created humans but animals evolved or that we evolved to a certain point and god gave us a soul or made us self-aware or any number of possible things.

I do not pretend to know such things.

I understand the process, and my comment wasn't an attempt to say that if evolution was true then only the most advanced animals and traits would be around today. No, my comment was a response to the idea that simply because these different kinds of eyes exist today, they can be used as evidence of "stages" throughout time. They obviously don't because neither you nor Dan-Erik Nilsson can prove that even one of these eyes preceded the other. So even if the eve considered to be "more advanced" was the only one left (which I am NOT submitting as an argument against evolution), it would at least give you a chance to assume that it came "after" the others.

I understand the process, and my comment wasn't an attempt to say that if evolution was true then only the most advanced animals and traits would be around today. No, my comment was a response to the idea that simply because these different kinds of eyes exist today, they can be used as evidence of "stages" throughout time. They obviously don't because neither you nor Dan-Erik Nilsson can prove that even one of these eyes preceded the other. So even if the eve considered to be "more advanced" was the only one left (which I am NOT submitting as an argument against evolution), it would at least give you a chance to assume that it came "after" the others.

Well it would have to come after them for the simple reason that it is built on the previous simpler eyes, the same way you can't have a wing without an arm or an arm without a fin. Every intermediate must be functional. But as the video even points out, flatworms have a simple pit eye that can barely detect movement because, presumably, in their environment they don't need an eye more advanced than that. Whereas a fast-moving animal would make much better use of an eye like ours.

And the point was that the evidence coincides with what is necessary for the theory, this thread was not meant to argue that evolution is true or provide evidence, it was meant only to explain the basic idea and mechanics of natural selection. I've already given loads of evidence elsewhere which was sadly largely ignored.

"I would ask that you please read the entire thing and try to be open-minded and not just mentally argue with it the whole time. Take in the information and think about it."

Or not...

"I would ask that you please read the entire thing and try to be open-minded and not just mentally argue with it the whole time. Take in the information and think about it."

Or not...

So that is your reply? How can you clain that 'Creationists avoid evidence' when you have been presented with a rebuttal and you don't respond, (just like to other responses I have made in other threads). You're only giving more evidence of a hypocritical nature.

I did read the entire thing, even watched the video, and I agree in some points, correcting you in others.... You would have seen this if you actually read my reply..... Did you read it?

I'm as shocked as anyone but I actually agree with you.

Really.. Then why do you use mere observation as evidence..... You agree that observations are not evidence, but has this been incorporated here? No... For example, when one observes similarities in fossils that is not enough in order to state where it came from.. Since there could be many different plausable reasons for the observation of similarities in fossils, what you need is an empricial test which verifies that evolution is the cause... This has not and cannot be done, since evolution is (claimed to be) a historical event therefore no empirical test can be done to verify said event, (as you agreed to in another thread in that you cannot do a test to find out what I was doing three years ago)

Therefore you've just agreed that the claimed evidence of evolution, doesn't support it as a scientific theory.. In fact its still a hypothesis.The only reason why its claimed to be a theory is because Darwin wrote that it was, despite the fact that he never made any empirical experiments to test it, rather he made the same assumption based on observation and claimed his hypothesis a theory.